


Blending

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic 2017 [14]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: First Meetings, Kid Fic, M/M, Meet the Family, Pets, Prompt Fill, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 06:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10430883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Episode Titles prompt:any fandom - any character - Yours, mine and ours (Private Practice)Falling in love with John was easy, but blending their families together took a lot of hard work. And a little luck.





	

**Yours**

Falling in love with John had been easy. They’d literally run into each other at the supermarket, a shouting match ensued, and they’d ended up spending hours in a diner getting to know each other.

Getting physical with John had also been remarkably easy. John had a little more experience with male-male sex – Rodney hadn’t been with a man since college – but they were more than compatible in bed. And they were both open to trying new things.

The bottom line was that John made him feel more alive than he had in a long time, and Rodney was ready to take the next step in their relationship: meeting John’s kids.

“Relax,” John said as he ushered Rodney into the family room. “You know they can smell fear.”

“Not helping,” Rodney snapped.

The Cash-Sheppard children looked like a diversity ad. Each one of them had been wallowing in foster care for years before John and his husband had stepped in and adopted them.

“Guys, this is Rodney.” John gave Rodney’s hand a squeeze. “Rodney, this is Team Cash-Sheppard. Elena, Jasper and Danny.”

Rodney and the three teenagers stared at each other. Elena was far too curvy for her age, and though she was mixed race there was clearly a very large Hispanic contribution. Jasper, dark-skinned and somber, was holding the family dog on his lap. (John had almost as many pictures of Bobo on his phone as his kids.) Danny, the oldest, was Asian and judging by the look he was giving Rodney he wasn’t impressed in the slightest.

“Uh…hi.”

Elena raised one sculpted eyebrow, a move Rodney had seen John do a hundred times. “Hey.”

Jasper stood up, cradling the little dachshund in his arms. “Bobo needs to go out.”

“Make it quick,” John said. “El, Danny, you can help me get lunch on the table.”

The kids moved with a significant lack of enthusiasm and Rodney wondered how early he could leave without looking like he was running away.

“Why don’t you go outside with Jasper,” John suggested. “We’ll have lunch ready in a sec.”

Rodney couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less, but he went because it was important. He loved John, and so he should learn to love John’s kids. Right? While Bobo sniffed around the yard, Rodney attempted to make small talk.

“John tells me you’re interested in Engineering.”

Jasper shrugged one narrow shoulder. “I guess.”

“That’s an excellent field to go into. I don’t know if he told you, but one of my degrees is in Engineering.”

“One of them?” The boy was starting to look interested in spite of himself. “How many do you have?”

“Two. The other is Astrophysics.” Rodney relaxed a little. He had no problem talking about himself. “The company I work for contracts with a lot of aerospace companies, including NASA. You know we’ve designed several key components of the new Atlantis space station.”

“Wow, really? That’s so…I mean. Sure. Whatever.” Another shrug.

“Okay, look. I know you guys aren’t excited that your dad is dating again. I get it, believe me. But I’m not here to replace Bryan.”

“All boyfriends say that to the kids,” Jasper said disdainfully. “Come on, Bobo! Lunch!”

Rodney followed them back in the house, thinking hard. He felt like he could win Jasper over, if he could just get past the wall Jasper and his siblings were putting up against their common enemy. And if he could get one on his side, together they could work on the other two. It was a solid plan.

He was feeling a little less confident after an ambulance ride to the hospital, though he was sure Elena’s tearful apology for putting lemon in his water was sincere (“I thought you’d just get a rash!”).

**Mine**

After the disastrous lunch with John and his kids it was Rodney’s turn to play host. He’d coached the girls on proper behavior, and thanked his lucky stars that John didn’t have any allergies.

“You tried to kill our daddy!” Alice accused as soon as John walked through the door. Her twin sister Dottie perfectly mirrored her angry, hands-on-hips pose. They made an imposing picture considering they were only four.

“That was an accident,” John said. He squatted down to get on their level. “I love your daddy. I would never hurt him.”

Dottie leaned over and whispered in Alice’s ear. Alice was her mouthpiece in all things.

“Dottie wants to know how your hair sticks up.”

Rodney clapped his hands. “Okay. That’s enough of that. Where’re the other two?”

“We’re icing the cake!” Carla called from the kitchen.

“You baked me a cake?” John asked with a grin.

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Can I get you something to drink? We have tea.”

“No lemon?” John teased.

“Lemons kill people,” Alice said. Dottie nodded her agreement.

“Why don’t you two go get the picture you drew for John?” Rodney suggested, and the girls ran off.

Carla and Jocelyn had more chocolate icing on themselves than on the cake. They looked up when John came in the room, studying him intently. Jocelyn went back to work on the cake, but Carla got a starry eyed look on her face that Rodney was unfortunately quite familiar with.

“Oooh. You have a pretty face.”

John blushed. “Thanks?”

“Get your own boyfriend,” Rodney said. He thumbed a blob of icing off Carla’s cheek and stuck it in his mouth. “You girls need to get washed up before you get chocolate all over the house.”

“But –”

“No buts. Get a move on.”

Carla sighed, deep and long, but she relinquished her spatula. “Come on, Jossy.” She tugged her sister towards the downstairs bathroom.

When they were alone in the kitchen John gave Rodney a quick kiss. “You must really have had your hands full when the little ones were babies.”

“You have no idea.” Rodney grabbed the sponge and cleaned the icing off the counter. “Carla and Jocelyn were in their terrible twos when Alice and Dottie were born. It was chaos. My sister came to stay for a week to help out and Jen didn’t want her to go.”

He remembered it as a period of constant diaper changes and feedings and toddler chasing, all on zero sleep.

“They’re really cute,” John said. “Was Jennifer blonde?”

“Nope. Those are solid McKay genes. I was towheaded as a kid and my sister is still blonde. I’m pretty sure some of that comes out of a bottle these days, though.”

Apparently girls were also part of the McKay genes, because Jeannie was in the same boat. Just without all the twins, because that came from Jen’s side of the family.

“John!” Alice and Dottie were back, and Alice was waving around a piece of paper. “We maked you a picture!”

Rodney had overseen the art project himself. They’d drawn an airplane being chased by a flock of geese, because he’d told them John liked to fly. Except that wasn’t the picture they gave John.

“Is this a dinosaur?”

“Nope. It’s Smaug. He’s a dragon.”

John gave Rodney a look, his eyebrows indicating that _The Hobbit_ was inappropriate for four year olds. Rodney surreptitiously flipped him off; the girls loved the movies.

“And what’s he doing?”

“Eating you,” Alice replied smugly. “Cause you’re a bad man.”

It was going to be a long lunch.

**Ours**

Blending the family wasn’t easy. There were accusations of favoritism on both sides, and no-one wanted to give up any of their family traditions no matter how big or how small. John’s kids didn’t want to be default babysitters because they were so much older than Rodney’s kids, and Rodney’s kids didn’t trust John’s kids not to have death lemons in the house so they were constantly ransacking the older kids’ rooms.

Hardest of all was moving everyone into a new, bigger house. A house free of the memories of Rodney’s dead wife and John’s dead husband. They saw it as neutral ground, a fresh slate, but the kids saw it as further evidence that their other parents were being completely eliminated from their lives.

The only ones who got along were Bobo and Rodney’s cat Tyson, who amiably shared a pet bed. 

Life was all “mine” and “yours”. Until Lucky.

“Hold it,” Rodney said. He pinned everyone in place at the kitchen table with his narrow-eyed gaze. “Where are your Brussels sprouts, Alice?”

His little girl looked at him with wide, guileless eyes. “I eated them.”

“No you didn’t.”

John looked around the table. “Didn’t we have a couple pork chops left?”

The teenagers shared a look, and Dottie whispered something in Alice’s ear that had her shaking her head.

“Okay, team. What’s going on?” John looked at everyone in turn, and then focused in on the weak link. “Carla. Talk to me.”

There was some below-the-table kicking, and whispered threats, but Carla broke like she always did. All nine of them ended up in Elena’s room staring at what was probably the mangiest dog Rodney had ever seen. He didn’t know much about canines – he was unashamedly a cat person – but thought it might be a lab or a retriever or something else that was bigger than Rodney was comfortable with.

“How long have you been hiding this mongrel in here?” he asked. It was smart of them to have Elena hide it, since she always demanded the most privacy; anyone who didn’t knock and wait for permission to enter was taking their life in their hands.

“He’s so cute, isn’t he?” 

Before Rodney could stop her, Alice had her arms wrapped around the animal. It was probably crawling with fleas, and just the thought made his skin itch. The dog licked at Alice’s arm but didn’t do anything threatening.

“He needed our help,” Danny said. “He was suffering out there.”

“He was starving,” Elena added. 

“We couldn’t just turn our backs on him,” Jasper said.

John held up his hands. “Okay. I appreciate that you all were looking out for the dog. But you shouldn’t have brought him into the house without talking to us first. He could be dangerous.”

“He’s a love bug!” Alice pressed a kiss to the thing’s dirty muzzle and Rodney grimaced. Where had he put the hand sanitizer? And could he bathe his daughter in it?

“We can take him to the animal shelter,” John said. “They’ll clean him up and find him a good home.”

Dottie tugged Alice away from the dog and whispered frantically in her ear. Alice turned her big blue eyes on John, lip quivering.

“No, Daddy! Please let us keep him! Please!”

For just a minute there was absolute silence in the room, save for the dog panting. John shot a quick glance at Rodney before looking back down at the two little girls crying in front of him. It was the first time Rodney’s kids had called John by anything other than his first name.

“Yeah, come on, Dad,” Jasper said. Only he was looking at Rodney when he said it. “Lucky is just like us. We needed a home, and people to love us, and so does he.”

Rodney felt like they were being played. In fact, he _knew_ they were, but despite his reputation around the lab he wasn’t made of stone. And he could see the beginnings of some real family unity in the way the kids had banded together to take care of the dog. He looked over at John, who nodded his head.

“I’ll call the vet,” Rodney said with a sigh. “And we’ll get him checked out. If he gets a clean bill of health…we can keep him.”

The kids cheered and congratulated each other and Lucky got to his feet, barking at the commotion. Rodney hadn’t even realized Bobo was in the room until he started barking as well, and clearly that little wiener had been colluding with the kids to hide the presence of another dog in the house. 

It would take a couple months, but when Lucky was fully recovered from his circumstances he was a fine specimen of his breed, which the vet confirmed was yellow Lab. He was fiercely protective of the children, and a little too enthusiastic when he was happy or excited, but Lucky somehow fit right into their new family.

There was a lot less “mine” and “yours” after that, and a lot more “ours”.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** When I saw this prompt I just had to have it. _Yours, Mine and Ours_ is one of my favorite movies. I mean, come one! Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda! The movie definitely inspired this prompt fill.


End file.
